Blooming Aloes

For bloom day in January, I cheated a bit. I had the opportunity to go to the Huntington Gardens a few weekends ago. The aloes were blooming in the desert garden, and I have to share these pictures. Warning, picture-heavy post ahead... and it was a strangely overcast but bright day, so the light is odd in some pictures. If I were better at photo-editing, I could fix them, I'm sure.

Starting with some non-Aloes, these Kniphofia gave a good idea of the wonders ahead:

Love that even at the Huntington, they leave hoses around to get in pictures...

 But the real show was in the Desert Garden. All the plants were labeled, but I was so captivated by the colors that I didn't make a note of any of the plant names.

Huge Aloe plants/bushes

Close up

Aloe next to an Agave pushing out a bloom stalk

the colors!

bi-colored blooms

this a panorama - with the light all messed up. But there were so many aloes, it was amazing.

 The Desert Garden is one of the oldest parts of the Huntington - some of these planting are almost 100 years old.

even un-opened, the bloom spikes were gorgeous.

tri-colored bloom!

creepy cactus in the background!

While I would love to translate some of this into my own garden, I'm not sure I have a hundred years, and we get too cold for most Aloes to survive in the ground. The whole display was amazing... If there is any opportunity to visit the Huntington in January/February, I can't recommend it enough!